When I saw the title of today’s first impression, I hesitated, knowing full-well that I could be going off into ridiculous ecchi fan service land. But, never one to judge a book by its cover, I threw caution to the wind and blazed forward. Some of my initial guesses proved to be correct, but overall I’m glad that I decided to give Yamada’s First Time a shot.

Yamada: a girl who knows what she wants. Can't really fault her for that!

The premise is one that we’ve all heard before: teenager wants to lose virginity. However, unlike the plethora of lowbrow comedy films about teenage boys lusting after naked exchange students, this time it’s a girl named Yamada who wants to get her V-card punched. (Yamada is her last name as well as the name she’s known by, since her first name is a secret.) But Yamada, being an excellent student and an ambitious girl, doesn’t just want to have sex once, she wants to sleep with one-hundred different guys. She’s beautiful and confident, and guys constantly flirt with her, so it should be no problem. However, Yamada can’t help picturing how awkward and bad in bed she’ll be the first time, and since she can’t fulfill her wish if she gets a reputation for being lame in the sack, her solution is to seek out her “golden cherry,” aka a boy who is also a virgin. That way he won’t have any expectations, and she’ll get some practice in before setting off to conquer the other ninety-nine guys.

"So, you like eating lunch?" "Yeah, I do." "Me too! Wanna make out?"

By sheer luck Yamada literally falls on top of such a boy one day at a bookstore. His name is Takashi Kosuda, and it turns out that he sits right beside Yamada at school. Once Yamada figures out for certain that he’s a virgin, she begins an awkward pursuit of him. Her tricks include trying to get him to share his math book, shoving him in a closet and flashing her breasts, and cornering him in the library while complaining of a sore tummy, hoping that he’ll rub it. However, each time she fails, either through Takashi’s embarrassment or her own. Finally she comes up with the brilliant plan of stealing his umbrella on a rainy day and sharing her own as she walks him to his house. There she meets his sister, who soon leaves, and the two are alone in his room. Yamada realizes that she forgot to bring a condom, but decides that starting with a kiss will work. She gives off all the signals that she’s ready for a kiss, and Takashi leans in close, but then she notices a bulge in his pants. This freaks her out so much that she bolts out of his room and runs off to her own house while yelling “What was that thing?!?” Takashi is left in his bedroom traumatized and chanting, “Kill me now!”

HERE ARE BOOBS! NOW WE DO THE NAUGHTY!

If you think it sounds funny, you’re right. It was kind of hilarious. Yamada is book smart but very lacking in common sense, and watching her go after shy Takashi again and again was pretty funny. It’s a fine line between sexual harassment and humor sometimes, but once it’s clear that Takashi wants the same thing as Yamada, the laughs just keep on coming. The characters are cute, as are the animation and ending song. I also really like that Yamada is a smart enough heroine to realize that she needs a condom, which adds to the realism. Yes, there is quite a bit of fan service, which is to be expected given the subject matter, but Funimation makes it clear that this show is for adults only. Matter of fact, the intended demographic is seinen, a genre that I’ve seen relatively little of. The other day as I was rewatching my only josei anime, the wonderful Princess Jellyfish (now available on Blu-ray/DVD!) I thought to myself that I really should explore more anime for adults. Then lo, this series falls into my lap. While I’m usually more interested in anime aimed at women than at men (purely for reasons of story trumping cheap fan service) it’s almost always interesting to watch a show made for my age demographic. If you’re looking for something deep and meaningful, this is not a good series to start with, at least from episode one. But if you’re looking for some laughs, B Gata H Kei Yamada’s First Time seems like it’s got quite a few to go around.

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I admit I got this one expecting a guy-friendly sex comedy in the vein of Three’s Company of Married…With Children, and that kind of comedy is a guilty pleasure of mine. (Which is not the same thing as many ecchi anime comedies which relies more on “Boy tripping over and accidentally groping girl’s boob” comedies)

Even though this looks like seinen/shounen as you said, there’s a particular sensitivity to its handling of Yamada’s thoughts, needs and desires that made me wonder about the author. Was this written by a man? He seems awfully sympathetic to her needs, desires, and yes, insecurities. Then I found out–the manga strip was written by a woman! Then it fell into place–the author is a woman writing for a male audience, but still manages to sneak in her own point of view.

This is especially true late in the series when Kosuda and Yamada are semi-officially a couple and try out different kinky things to actually get around to doing the deed! And there’s like a running commentary throughout Yamada’s head throughout every action. “Do I want this? No, wait. Ah, that turns me on! Ergh, why is Kosuda being such a pussy now?” LOL!

That’s awesome! I love authors and artists who create work for the opposite gender (or better yet, make genderless works of art). I really liked what I saw thus far, and I like it even more now knowing that a real story develops. Like I’ve said before, I don’t really care if there’s fan service, it just annoys me when it takes away from the story (or worse yet, there *is* no story, just boobs and panty shots). To each their own, of course, but personally, I need some sort of story to get into an anime. 🙂
Very cool that the author is a woman!